


It's all been a pack of lies.

by Sinsrose



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dubious Consent, Eating Disorders, Electroconvulsive Therapy, Food Issues, Gaslighting, Gunplay, HYDRA Trash Party, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Knifeplay, M/M, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Mildly Dubious Consent, Psychological Trauma, Rape/Non-con Elements, Repressed Memories, Sensory Deprivation, Sexual Abuse, Sexual Violence, Stockholm Syndrome, Violence, Waterboarding, everyone in HYDRA is fucked up, this is not a happy fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-26
Updated: 2016-06-03
Packaged: 2018-07-10 10:44:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6981142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sinsrose/pseuds/Sinsrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He never, he doesn’t understand why they won’t tell him. They don’t tell him. They never tell him about the blood on his hands. They never tell him that he’s killed. They don’t say you murdered for us. They don’t tell James that he’s their soldier. That they broke a boy at sixteen, that they tore down his walls and rebuilt them into something else. And almost a decade later his head still cannot process the abuse, it isn’t abuse to him. It’s more of his captors taking care of him, making sure that he breathes that he’s alive. That he isn’t dead. That a twenty-six year old man is struggling under a weight that no one knows about because everyone that does is a part of the problem. That it’s been almost a decade of living among the snakes that put him in this cage and he doesn’t even know it. He doesn’t remember, time blurs when you become used to living with nightmares and trauma. Time blurs when you no longer have control over your life or even your body.  </p><p>     modern au, with a touch of stockhold syndrome, please read the warnings.</p><p>      updates are every other thursday + weekend, and every other friday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. barnes

  You hold your breath. Thinking that it will save you. That it will make the pain in your bare feet hurt less. That it will make your discolored bones feel a reduced amount of discomfort, as you shift your body to brace against the porcelain of the tub. You’ve been missing for six months. You know you have. The times that you have escaped, when you have gotten away from those fingers pressing across your skin, you saw a date or at least a _clock_. You don’t remember the last time you actually saw a clock or calendar.  
  
   Home wasn’t here. It was back in the States. You had been a college student, you had just doing odd ends of money. You were surviving. It wasn’t your fault that any of this happened. You were just trying to escape your history. Okay so you were lying, when you said this hadn’t been home at one point. Your parents had raised you here in Romania until you were a teenager, and you had only spent a small amount of time in America.  Your parents had wanted to protect you from this. They had known about these types of things, been involved in a life that you were not meant to be thrown into.  
  
     Your feet press against the titles, and you can hear your own breathing. Your last escape attempt was about two months ago. And they had just found you now. It explains why you’re in a shittier motel room, well it’s only considered shittier because it’s one of their hotels. The group your parents had tried to avoid, and it had cost them their lives. You knew about their deaths, which that’s why you’re thanking god because Rebeca is safe and tucked away in the states by extended family.   
  
James breathes out again past frayed lungs. He’s been shaking ever since you had been found and locked away in the bathroom. Bruised and torn up from when they grabbed him. James had been carrying just a backpack, he don’t have any way to get back to the states. He’s tried, they always know someone within the passport area. They always catch him if he tries to get any paperwork. They have eyes everywhere. And it’s not fair, even if you know the tongue. He wants to go back to the states. He misses the people he used to know.

  His fingers sweep across the blood on his temple. Leaning against the tub more now. James feels like he can’t breathe. He feel like screaming, even though it wouldn’t get you anywhere. Not after who had found him. Zemo had made sure James wouldn’t run, tucked him into a little caged box. And it’s why he’s sitting by the tub, trying to control himself. His backpack is in the corner of the room, with a change of clothes and some food, but that’s all they left in there. They took your money (what was left of it), and they took your knives, and a faked ID that James managed to get, by chance by connection to someone here.   
  
James can feel the blood all over him. He knows he has bruises all over the place. James knows there is damage everywhere. The trauma that he’s dealt with by Zemo alone is enough to last for a lifetime, that man is more than unpleasant, he rivals Alexander, who is going to kill James when he finds out you’ve been located. James grip the side of the tub, listening to his own breathing for moments at a time. He’s tried to leave the bathroom, the door’s locked from the outside.  Instead you count backwards. There’s only so many of the men from the group here.   
  
James knows Zemo is one, Rollins James had punched. Sitwell, James had broken his nose, and Murphy he had stuck a knife into his leg. Alexander’s left hand man, Zola isn’t here. Thank god, because that would have ended with James being flown to Russia directly to Alexander who would have done more than what Zemo had done to James. James is listing these names in his head, only because _he_ hasn’t shown up yet.

         He puffs out a breath. Another escaped breath leaving his lungs. He doesn’t remember the last time he left this room. Doesn’t remember the last time he talked to someone. The last time that he had interaction outside of Zemo. It’s how they play a game with him, they make him hungry and touch starved, and then they can get him to do anything. It’s why Alexander hasn’t killed him despite the amount of times he’s run and the amount of times he’s been kidnapped by these men. 

 

     Plus in about five seconds, Alexander Pierce could make him wanted by about twenty or more countries for deaths that that man caused but there’s enough evidence planted that they could frame James. Which is the other reason it’s difficult to leave any country without them wanting him to. It’s why he’s been stuck in Romania for about three years now. His fingers rub across his short hair, Zemo had been pissed when he had seen that. The way that he’d cut his hair off shaved it off at point and let it grow short. It was getting in the way anyway, and it was easier with short hair.    
  
And now it’s a waiting game really of who is even going to enter this room. Because it could be days, it could be hours, it could be months. It depends on their mood. It depends how they’re feeling, if they feel that James has been good enough to leave his little box. Not that much would change, they would handcuff him to a bed when he actually was let out to sleep on one. It took a good three years to actually manage an escape, and it took a lot of planning and remembering what they did on a regular basis. He sighs heavily, sitting now on the floor. Staring at the tiles above on the celling.   
  
   If he had to guess it has been around thirty six hours since he was placed here which would be a little over a day. So he’s got to make do with what he’s got for now. As far as food and clothing is concerned, there’s a jacket at least he can use if he gets cold and his other clothing he could bundle in also but that’s not really the point. The silence is killing him. The longer he lingers within his own head, the more he starts to disconnect from reality, and they’ve used this over and over again on him. He gets dependent on the people that kidnapped him. Alexander also knows this and it’s the reason he hasn’t killed James yet.  
  
  
      Another ten or is it twenty hours pass. It could be longer. Somewhere within the silence time drags on. It always drags on. Time just moves. James sleeps. He chooses to sleep, despite the fact that he had cuts and scratches, they aren’t infected, he knows they aren’t they would have cleaned them if they were. He sleeps, his patterns of sleeping increase when he’s around them. He chooses to sleep, he’s slept in the worst places and positions. He’s also been sleep deprived by them for days and days by them also, which is why he chooses to sleep as much as possible.   
  
  
                         It’s on the six day, when Barnes hunger is knowing and he’s living off water. Its six days into being back where he starts slipping back, and starts living on what is survival, he doesn’t yell or plead for anyone. He’s quiet, and drinks from the sink every time his stomach growls. He shuts his body up with hunger. He knows that they will come. They will. He knows this because he’s hungry, and it pangs him at the back of his throat. It leaves him with a dry mouth. And it also makes him just want the bag of plumbs that he was going to have but got grabbed instead of being able to enjoy it.

 

      It’s on this day when a lock clicks open and he hears boots. They starved him on purpose. They know he won’t have as much energy to fight or to run. And he can smell- he can smell food. He can smell it and it makes his stomach ache. He knows the sharp hunger pangs when he feels them, he knows it. The door clicks shut behind whoever has stepped inside. He knows for a fact that the man has a trick for getting the door open from the inside but James hasn’t looked up to see who it is. He doesn’t want to think about if it’s Zemo or someone of that nature.  However what he does catch is the amount of containers that the other pulls from his bag. The amount of food that is here. But that means, they want to know what James knows. He gets the feeling that they didn’t just let him escape like that, they knew he was going to meet certain people. He knows the game that they play.     
  
   His eyes watch the man’s fingers, he’s still keeping his eyes level with the ground. He can see the man scooping out contents of a soup, leek soup, followed by setting other types of food onto plates such as, black pudding, lamb, stuffed peppers, some type of bred and Semolina porridge, and he sees a bag of plumbs, in which seeing he looks upwards. There’s only one person that would bring so much food in here, and he won’t get backhanded offhand for looking up at him.

 

Rumlow has got a smoke tucked at the corner of his mouth. Letting a breath be sucked in as he takes an inhale. Fingers pulling the smoke from his lips, he holds it, smoke trailing upwards. Eyes looking over at the man that’s sitting beside the tub. He’s familiar with this, he’s always been familiar with this. Ever since he was seventeen he’s been working with shit like this. He doesn’t care for most of the people that he’s had to deal with. Most of the prisoners they get don’t last over a month. They never do, this one is a different matter completely. HYDRA has had tabs on him ever since they took him off the streets, Alexander made sure of that one.

 Rumlow pauses looking at the state that James is in. Another breath leaving him. A scowl is evident on his features. It’s not that he doesn’t care, he does for the kid but their relationship is complicated as hell. A serve case of Stockholm syndrome if the Americans ever looked at it, which they have he’s wanted in the states for that reason. He leans against the wall smoking for a few moments longer, before he dumps the smoke into the toilet. His nerves aren’t shot, but he is irritated from the events that have pertained over the last two months.   
  
     “Mission report?”  
  
   It’s a dry statement, which makes James hair stand on end. So he had met someone of interest to Alexander. So they had set him up to escape again. James had thought it was too easy getting out the last time, considering it had been Zemo that he had run from. That statement also makes him wonder who exactly that he came into contact that was of importance. Someone that they were looking for in Romania. He also knows very well, that Alexander might be using this as a bargaining or blackmail gain, considering the facts.   
  
This wouldn’t be the first time, they set James up to murder someone, though they never make his hands get too dirty. Most of the time it’s been a cyanide capsule hidden or poured into someone’s drink. The worst death he’s had to manage was that time that Zemo had him help waterboard someone and that wasn’t even scratching the surface of what that man has done. But that incident has also gotten him branded as wanted by one country, he doesn’t remember which one it was so long ago.  
  
 He has to swallow glancing over towards Rumlow. The man is dressed completely in black. Barefoot and no injuries. It’s hard to believe that Rumlow even trusts the floor enough to walk barefoot, but then again they threw him in here barefoot so it’s not much of a risk. HYDRA does keep most of their shit clean, they just like to throw him in the grimier looking places. Throws him off more, not to mention it’s unnerving. He exhales another breath, eyes giving another glance at the food on the floor, and the pangs of hunger are real at the back of his mouth.   
  
   “Mission report.” He repeats again.   
  
   Barnes cringes again. Whatever he had stumbled across here clearly was important as hell. And he shifts his leg for a moment. Still silent. He really doesn’t want to talk about the last two months. He’d be lying if he said everything was peachy when he had escaped and made a living. He knows for a fact half of the shit he had access was more likely HYDRA owned somehow. He raises or attempts to stand, but only gets about halfway.   
  
   Rumlow has chosen to stand between his legs that are spread apart. James’s fingers are bracing himself on the tub. Rumlow’s got a hand by his head, in his hair holding him still and he’s half kneeled down, eyes looking right at him. The physical contact makes James want to squirm away from it, but his body, his body is too _exhausted_ to really fuss or put up a fight right now. They have him where they want him right now.  “Mission report, soldier.”  
  
    James wheezes out a breath. Rumlow is too close. Too close. It’s been months since he’s been thrown into a room like this with the other. And there’s a good reason it doesn’t happen. James becomes undone, Alexander knows this, and he knows what Rumlow does to him. And it can’t even be considered rape anymore, it used to be. One could argue that James has just learned to deal with the advances and just use them to his advantage. Aka, he’s attached to his captors, and he shouldn’t be. But Rumlow is the only one he doesn’t scream or shout at, there were times in the past where he had and it had gotten him a stun baton pressed all over his body, and it left him unable to move for hours on the floor. 

 

    When he talks it’s slow. It’s slow and grating and he goes over as many details as possible of what happened in the last two months. It’s annoying and it’s unnerving because if he leaves anything out Alexander will know, he always knows. And Rumlow keeps him held where he is as he speaks, heels raised on the floor. He’s exhaling sharply as he finishes talking about one subject and drifts to the next. This goes on for a while, until his heel starts to ache and throb from kneeling how he is. But Rumlow holds him there despite his discomfort and gets him to keep talking. Recap anything and everything important, his fingers still holding his hair. He only knows he’s done when Rumlow releases his head, and it feels like hours later.  
  
       And his body falls back down onto the tiles. It’s evident that Rumlow doesn’t want him standing unless needed by him. And he falls back into what is deemed as their soldier, his survival counts on that one. Rumlow bends over to grab the bag of plums, but he also left James a tray of food in the corner, nothing has been said about it. But he knows it’s for when Rumlow leaves.   
  
“Good. Good, sounds like Alexander found what he was looking for through you kid.” Rumlow’s fingers are picking up a plumb, holding it over to James’s mouth. It’s outright cruel doing this to him, making him eat from the hand that bites him. He takes a bite of the purple fleshed fruit almost slow. As if he’s afraid that Rumlow’s going to pull back his hand. His first bite of fruit almost makes him whimper considering it’s been days with nothing but water in his system. So actual fruit and the stickiness from the juice, clings to his lips when he bites down on it. Chewing slowly as if to savor it not to mention, if you eat to fast when hungry your body doesn’t react well. It’s made him sick one too many times before by rushing eating food. He takes another bite from the fruit, swallowing looking at Rumlow for a moment.     
  
    
 “What reason do they even have to keep me alive?” It’s a question he knows the answer to. He’s known the answer and over and over again he keeps asking it. He always asks it no matter what. It’s just a question that never seems to get answered. Never. And Rumlow shoots him a look. Placing the plumb into James’ hand, as he sits beside the man.

 

          “You know the answer to that kid.” He takes a plum from the bag again, holding it in his fingers again. As James slowly finishes the other one down to the core. And goes after the next one in Rumlow’s hands. “Though, Alexander was pissed about the fact you tried to drown Zemo.” James doesn’t regret that one at all. When they had been trying to take him back, he had almost killed that man, if you had it up to him he would of if Rollins hadn’t stunned him with a tazer.

 

    He sighs heavily. Fingers picking at the fruit. The juice staining his hands as he does so. There’s a silence that stretches, even if he is familiar and comfortable around Rumlow, there is still that unease that settles into his frame. Still that feeling of feeling almost suffocated. That suffocated feeling has always lingered as far as he can remember. Some of the abuse from them, its left gaping holes in his memories. From the drugs, from things he can’t remember, somewhere down the line he remembers electricity maybe.     
  
   His memories aren’t whole. There’s so many things that have happened to him within the last seven years and it leaves his head in shambles. The buzz of electricity isn’t something he outright remembers but he know, he knows Alexander has outright used treatment on him that was illegal in so many countries even though he doesn’t _remember_ it. He just remembers waking cold or in a bathtub that was filled with ice water. It was as if he had been thrown blackened out into the tubs those days, not that he recalls. He never remembers how he got into the tub, or the damage that he did to end up there.    
  
    James finishes the fruit. Letting the taste linger at the back of his tongue. Fingers dropping to his sides, eyes focused on Rumlow. “Why can’t he just let me _go_? It’s not like I remember. I barely remember my life before all of this.” He knows too much. Too much about Alexander’s inner circle, knows how dirty the man is. Knows how easy it is for that snake to get blood on his hands. It’s too easy when the blood is thicker than the river you’re standing in. James has living this disaster of chaos for the last seven years, was it even _seven years_?      
  
                              “Why can’t I just go home? I had a _home_.” He’s pleading at the end of his tongue. Rumlow isn’t answering him. No one ever answers him when he asks about home. When he sees the snippets in his mind that aren’t the white walls and what remained of other recollections. No one ever answers him when he talks about home. Did he even have a _home_? Did he ever have parents? --- the lines are so blurred by what they’ve done to him They’ve made him a rat, and put him into a cage. And sometimes throw him the keys, sometimes toss him out of the cage only to be thrown back.    
  
He never, he doesn’t understand why they won’t tell him. They don’t tell him. They never tell him about the blood on his hands. They never tell him that he’s killed. They don’t say you murdered for us. They don’t tell James that he’s their soldier. That they broke a boy at sixteen, that they tore down his walls and rebuilt them into something else. And almost a decade later his head still cannot process the abuse, it isn’t abuse to him. It’s more of his captors taking care of him, making sure that he breathes that he’s alive. That he isn’t dead. That a twenty-six year old man is struggling under a weight that no one knows about because everyone that does is a part of the _problem_. That it’s been almost a decade of living among the snakes that put him in this cage and he doesn’t even know it. He doesn’t remember, time blurs when you become used to living with nightmares and trauma. Time blurs when you no longer have control over your life or even your _body.  
  
    _   James is shaking. He isn’t even aware of it but he’s shaking. Its small tremors not enough that he’s aware himself but enough that the other man in the room sees it.  James isn’t worth this, he’s not worth keeping alive. He doesn’t understand, why they won’t just kill him. He disobeyed them. He tried to run from them, he- _can’t they let him go already_. Why can’t they let him go? He’s suffocating all over again, he can feel his lungs hitch and the way that his chest tightens.     
  
  
               “Steve, you promised he’d come. Why hasn’t he come? Why?” His voice is a hitch, an edge of something. Something that’s broken, something that is _scared_ , something that is fractured. Something that is breaking apart. “I want to go home. You promised. You told me if I was good. Brock you promised me. You _promised_.” His voice cracks, he’s breaking down. He’s been here a matter of weeks, and he can’t last. Sitting in a room with a man that let him be tortured, let him be made into someone that they can use. He was made into their ghost. James doesn’t even know if he’s legally alive outside of this _country_.   
  
      Fingers are harsh across skin. Harsh and the slap echoes in the room. The bruise forming just as quickly as he was hit. Brock’s eyes are expressionless. He has no emotions in them, unlike when he first entered the room. His lips in a tight line. James has been out of their gasp too long, those ideals were nailed out of him so long ago. So, so long ago.  “Quiet, soldier. Enough.” And James still trembles, he is still a broken _man._     
  
 “You’re dead don’t you remember? You don’t exist outside of us. Outside of HYDRA you are _nothing_. Nobody is looking for a boy that was found dead. They’ve given up on you. Your home is with us. It has only been with us. We fix you, we make you feel better.” Rumlow doesn’t give him a second glance as he stands, he knows that James will not rise, he will not stand.    


James barely manages to stomach the food after the door clicks behind Rumlow.  He ends up saving the soup figuring it will be awhile before he gets anything else.  
  



	2. wiped

    Nothing gets better. It never does. He gets out of the room they’ve kept him locked in but he’s deprived of everything. He cannot hear, he cannot see. James isn’t aware of where he even is outside the bathroom they’ve kept him locked in. He just knows that the sight and sound return when they move him to a room they feel comfortable having him in. And having his vision come back into view, makes him unsteady. He’s not met by Rumlow. God, he wishes it was _Rumlow_.   
  
  Alexander is standing watching him. He’s watching James with almost a thoughtful eye. An amused quirk of the lips but also the hint of something that is far too unsettling. He’s uncomfortable under the man’s gaze, he always has been. The way that he’s looked at, like he’s just a weapon. Like he’s just a device to use for the schemes. He swallows heavily, shifting on his feet. He’s been here before, standing here in this room with Alexander. It’s the vault, no one can hear him screaming, and no one knows what goes on here. This is where they _fix_ him.    
  
         “Please sir, I don’t need it. I won’t run. I won’t”-  
  
 Alexander raises his hand upwards. Enough to say. Stop. You don’t need to talk. You weren’t asked to talk soldier. You speak when spoken to, not when you feel like it. “You’ve forgotten you belong to us, boy. Your name, your body. You have belonged to us before you can recall.” Alexander’s words are sharp and low spoken but also like a snake striking towards its prey.   
  
   James wants to curl up and die. He wants to yell, he wants to scream. He wants to outright protest everything that has ever been done to him here. He wants to pretend that this has just been a dream that those words that he wants to use can be said. That he doesn’t just stop talking when they tell him to stop. That he doesn’t listen to their words. But he does. He does because he doesn’t really want to die. Some part of himself says at the back of his mind-  
  
         _You won’t forget Steve. You never do. You don’t forget home. Your heart still is home. You only do this to survive._ The hurt in his bones makes him less focused on these types of things. The hurt in his blood makes him uncoil into this primal wolf with his teeth bared. He wakes into this wolf from sheep’ skin, he wants and it leaves bruises across his skin. The touches of men that are unwanted, the touches that his mind does not connect to his body. He hasn’t he hasn’t for _years_. The abuse doesn’t connect, it doesn’t linger in his mind. It drifts away like a bad dream, blurs and moments of it showing when James sees his own blood. When James smells something that tugs his head back, and then James screams as if there’s agony in his bones when it’s just his own head.   
  
  
    “We need to remind you that you are ours and ours alone.”   
  
  
     He doesn’t want this. No. No. No. He, please _god no_. make it stop. He just wants to go home. He hates being fixed. James isn’t some broken doll. He’s not a doll you can just play with and put away when you don’t like him. He’s human. He’s real. He has needs to. He wants his own _life._ Can’t they stop taking everything from him?   
  
“You took him from _me._ You took Steve. You took him from me. I was happy. I don’t belong to _you_.” James’s words are cracked and broken. A borderline of a panic. Of a struggle, this is the way the clockwork goes, he lives and lives and then they break him. They break him down to the most primal needs, the things that he misses the most and start to dilute the memories again. Just give him more drugs, zap his brain, HYDRA has created things that the world hasn’t seen. While others would call it electroshock theory, its torture and brainwashing at the highest degree.  
  
       It’s a form of torture that the states aren’t even aware of existing or maybe they use it for actual torture. And the desperation in his voice, in James’ voice isn’t just from wanting to go home. It’s from him not wanting this, he doesn’t want to lose the threads that he’s pieced together over the last few years, and he doesn’t want to lose himself again. Become their pretty little monster that gets tucked away.   
  
“You’ve taken everything from me. Why can’t you stop? I played your game. I want to go home. You promised. You _promised_.”  He’s been lied to over and over and over again. And he’s struggling, he’ struggling and thrashing when he feels people touching him. Touching him and slipping IV’s into his limbs to sedate and _destroy_ him.   
  
                “Don’t do this to me. Alexander, you _promised_ me. Please.”---

 

                  A mouth guard is shoved into him. And it’s his body’s own reflexive nature to bite down. It take ahold of it. He’s been here many times before. He’s been in this chair, he’s said this all before. It’s not the first time that the tech, (at least that’s what they call the medical staff) have seen him like this. And he’s thrown down into sedation, the hum of drugs into his skin, to get him to be still. To get him to comply.    
  
  
           “Your mission hasn’t ended soldier.”  
  
  James closes his eyes shut, fingers squeezing against the bonds on the chair. When the pain comes. There are no sounds but screaming. There are no sounds but the muffled harsh screaming. The screaming that goes on for hours. Something within his nerves burn alive, the damage that they are doing cannot be explained to anyone. The medical devices they use on him, they are not tested, and they are kept under lock and key. The serum that has been put in his veins, it’s something they use on everyone here. It is the reason they can shape him. It is the reason they can fry his brain alive and he still remains alive.    
  
    He’s always numb and the roof of his mouth is dry by the end of everything. It’s dry and the mouth guard is covered in spit when it slips from his mouth. His head is nothing. There is nothing there no thoughts, nothing. There’s not a trace of _home_ lingering there. There’s not a trace of much. James still hasn’t opened his eyes. His body is fried or so it seems, his nerves a scattered mess, it’s hard to really move anything.   
  
     He’s drugged, and wiped clean. They’ve got their little soldier back. They’ve got their murdering boy back. It doesn’t matter if it’s against his will. He’s theirs. James has always been theirs. He’s always been there’s. He will still will fight. The wiping never lasts long, only calms him for some time. Not enough if you were to ask Alexander. But then again it’s still a work in progress.  He bonds are undone, and he remains sitting, eyes vacant staring into space.   
  
     James hears the footsteps more people. But reminds with the vacant look in his eyes. He’s just staring at the wall or ground not at people. Even though he can hear words being talked, he doesn’t listen to them, it’s not his place. Fingers touch across his shoulder, familiar warmth from them. _Rumlow_. A voice whispers at the back of his mind. Eyes looking upwards, the empty look still there.  
  
               “Ready to comply soldier?”   
  
        “What’s my mission?”   
  
     The grin etched onto Rumlow's features is like a sharks, and laughter can be heard before Alexander briefs them both.   
  
 James leaves the room, bites and bruises lingering across the skin. No memory, no struggle or reminder of to how it happened. His mind still reeling from the drugs, and electricity poured into his veins like some kind of liquid fire.


	3. recoil

   It’s like a game of chess. The pieces are all placed on the board and chosen before anyone is really aware of it. The chessboard has been played for ages and ages, it’s just a matter of how the pieces fall. They fall one by one until there is nothing left. Missions are murder. They have always been murder, they’ve always been assassinations. Blood staining hands that are too fragile to hold the pool of blood in them. They’ve always been shaking, they’ve always been so small in this world.    
  
   James Buchanan Barnes wasn’t born a killer. He wasn’t born a man that is this broken and dehumanized. He hadn’t chosen the life that he was now living, not that the choices mattered anymore. Everything he did was never his choice even if he had gotten freedom at points, people had always controlled what he did. He barely remembers his life among his parents and his sister. He doesn’t think on them much either when he does begin to recall things. Steve tends to come back to memory before anyone.     
  
  
        He recoils when the blood drips from his fingers. He’s killed someone again. James has slain someone again for the sake of HYDRA. Not that his thought process actually matters. What matters is the money that Alexander gets from the body lying dead on the floor. Cyanide poisoning, one of the less noble ways to kill someone. It had been painless, well for the person giving the poison. The blood was from a man that had attempted to kill him after he had seen the poisoned person drop to his death.  But the one fact that remains to be said is the fact that, James took five months to do this. It wasn’t overnight after the wiping.   
  
   It was months of playing a game again. It was months spending like a zombie and beckoning to HYDRA’s needs.  And fragments of life start to pull together at the touch of blood on his skin, they always have. Which explains why he’s bent over heaving his lungs out into a trash can. The recollection of teeth on skin, _bruises_ that don’t heal. Chaff marks from cuffs, from ropes, evidence of abuse is everywhere and littered in his memories that he does recall. And it’s like a bad nightmare standing here over a dead man, realizing these people were not a _home_ , they were a prison.

 

     James just wants to scream again. Or take the nearest tazer and shove it up their _ass_. He’s drowning in his own demons, and it’s not fair. It’s never been fair on him. He wipes the corner of his mouth, staring at the body for a small fraction of a minute. He’s got about a half hour before anyone from HYDRA comes looking for hm. He’s got a half hour period on his own, minus the fact that Rumlow is around. He’s always around when handling him. He’s got a half hour before he’s broken over _again_. And James is visibly twitchy and unsettled.   
  
  
    He rises ignoring the fact the contents of his stomach are there in the trash can.  He doesn’t look the body over, ignores the fact it exists. Let’s his feet pad over to Rumlow and lets himself fall into the habits they’ve created for him. It’s easier to ignore his own distress, ignore the fact he’s drowning himself by living with these people. “Body’s yours. The corrosive is in the bathroom.” James disregards the fact that he sounds so dehumanized talking about someone being dead in the same room as him, by his own hands.   
  
  
   Rumlow’s fingers press across his shoulders in a movement that makes his skin crawl. And his mind drifts back to small fingers from a blonde boy, a boy that lived back in _Brooklyn._ That disconnect from reality burying himself in the fact that someone does miss him, that someone had cared about him.  It’s as if someone is petting his shoulders, praising him for murdering a man. It makes him sickened that the give him affection for _killing_.  He bites down on his tongue, ignoring the way that Rumlow’s fingers press on his shoulders.     
  
         “Alexander is pleased you know, he’s letting you out of the cage for a bit.”    
  
  
      Freedom isn’t given, it’s granted. Unless he escaped under their doing. But the freedom that Rumlow is talking about, it’s another type that is rare. That’s rare and cruel and something that doesn’t happen often. Rumlow is talking about leaving this country. He’s talking about being let out to walk around another place. He’s seen other countries but only for weeks, and those were outright brutal murders committed.    
  
               “He said this one counts for some of your debt you owe to us.”   
  
  James doesn’t react to that. They’re baiting him for a reaction. They always do, they always want his reaction for that one. His debt no one can change, no one can change that. They have photos upon photos of James drenched in blood, they have blackmail. They could make him wanted everywhere if they wanted to. He swallows his tongue trying not to react with how Rumlow is rubbing at that spot in his neck that makes him let out a keening noise and go limp.   
  
                       “Trip is for five years. He expects twenty assassinations. No less. He’s placing you in living arrangements with me for the duration of the stay in the States.”   
  
                      He wants to die. He wants to. But if there was any indicator that he did, it isn’t shown. It’s never shown. Living with Rumlow no matter what context is hellish. That man, he doesn’t care what he does to James. Even if he may treat him better than Zemo or some of the others, he still doesn’t care for him. But the only thing that is decent about any of this is, it’s the _states_. It’s home. It’s home, it’s somewhere he hasn’t been in the last decade.    
  
                                     “Don’t do anything stupid.”  
  
   _I can’t you’re taking all the stupid with you._  
  
               His fingers dig into his own skin to keep himself composed. He listens to Rumlow but doesn’t make a sound. Doesn’t make a sound. He still feels the others finger’s on his flesh. But Rumlow turns away fingers putting on a pair of gloves to dispose of the body, and James remains still trying to control his breathing, trying not to recall.   
  
   It never works.    
  
  
                   And when they touch down in New York a week later, Rumlow’s fingers laced into his own he fakes a smile but all of him wants to run. Run and escape, because here it is harder for them to bring him back, this is his _home_ not there’s and he doesn’t want them to ruin it.


	4. haunted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dub-con/non-con
> 
>  
> 
> and a plot point.

  
  
      Fingers are curved across his mouth as his body arches into the onslaught of the rough touch. The way that he bends backwards, the way that he outright comes undone into the touch. You could never say to him it was the drugs. You could never say to him that he didn’t want this. You couldn’t tell this man that he was being raped. But he was, you just had to look for the reasoning behind it. The way that blue eyes are dilated and not normal. The way that the drug makes his skin feel on fire, the way that his flesh eats him alive and smothers him.   
  
               The moan that’s muffled under the other’s hand, the way that he squirms on the other’s cock. The way that he had rode the other, looked him dead in the eyes. Told him that he loved him, told him that no one takes care of him better than Brock does. That he’s Brock’s good little boy. That he’s his slut, that he’s his bitch. Not a soul knows what goes on disclosed behind those doors. Of course that muffled moan could also be a scream considering the drugs are wearing off and he’s no longer in a haze even if his body is. His mind is screaming no while his body screams yes. And he always takes it, he always has taken.    
  
         “Brock, please. Please. _I’ll be good._ ”--   
  
    It’s a broken choked off noise. That’s a cross between a moan and a sob. It’s not just a fuck to Brock. He’s been screwing James for hours upon hours. It’s not just Brock fucking him. It’s him breaking James down. It’s him leaving imprints all over his skin, leaving bruises, leaving marks telling other’s not to touch him. That he belongs to someone. But all of this is abuse, all of this is nothing but abuse even if Brock said he loved him. James doesn’t even know if that was a real statement, it could have been the drugs for all he knows.   
  
                Another movement and he chokes on a sob. He chokes on the noise. He can feel the sharp pain in his body, he can feel the blood on his thighs. He’d gotten his share of orgasms against his will, and some given to his drug induced mind that had made him lax in the sheets. But here and now, this isn’t about him. This is _torture_ to him. This is about breaking his will down. This is also about the fact that he had tried to escape. This is about him running, and Brock had caught him and chosen to give him a lighter torture. Just the drugs but James would rather be tortured by _Zemo_.

 

       Every rape inflicted onto his body leaves him scarred. Leaves him knowing he doesn’t deserve to be alive. Leaves him thinking he deserves this. That these are his captors, that these men have always controlled him. That this is his life. That he is theirs. That he never had a choice of yes in these touches, these kisses. These bruises and the blood. So much _blood_.  He wants it to stop, he wants the moans from his lips to stop. He hates his traitor body that they’ve broken him in to get him to like this. That his body is used to this, that he’s okay with this. That his screaming is something that is normal, the way that the cuffs bite into his wrists is normal. The way that tears fall across his face is normal. He closes his eyes, choking on a sob.  He doesn’t fight Brock. He’s given up. He’s past the point of trying. He just lets the other fuck him. Let’s him rip him apart. Let’s him dirty him, he knows the feeling of cum and blood all too well. And he doesn’t speak a word, he can’t he’s been pleading for hours for the other to stop ever since he came down from the drugs.  


      “You gonna be good now soldier?”   
  
      James barely answers him. An expressionless look in his eyes, when Brock removes himself from his naked frame. Bruises littering everywhere, even across his tattoo that stretches on his left shoulder that looks like a metal arm extending down that side. His bones ache, everything aches, everything hurts, and everything is just so _broken_.   
  
                          “Your objective is still the same, find a way to get close to Tony Stark.”  
  
      James is still slack against the bed, cuffs digging into his wrists, they’re bleeding when Rumlow does undo them, and actually wipes them off. Cuts in places where he had let them dig into his skin and from when James had tried to pull them off. He remains still as Rumlow cleans off some of the cuts and wounds. He won’t shower until Rumlow leaves with Rollins. He won’t. He’s allowed out of the house but he’s not going to leave after this. He doesn’t trust his own reflection if other people saw him like this. As it is he feels smaller than he should against the other.  
  
  
      It takes hours for him to rise from the bed to go shower.   
  
  
                 Three hours later, he’s at a café in Brooklyn getting a coffee when his dream world comes crashing down.  



	5. Chapter 5

  You lost your best friend when you were sixteen. You recall the news clippings. You hit your fists against a wall. You had done everything a kid could have done if they knew their friend went missing. The blonde stares at the circled files, the information that has been read at least a dozen times. He still hasn’t given up on the facts. Still hasn’t given up on his friend. But it’s been over a decade since he saw the kid, and most assume that he’s dead. Most that aren’t the director.   
  
   Fury has a different understanding of human trafficking cases not to mention people that do this type of work. The way that the world crumbles, how these people tie the ones they took off the streets to them. These aren’t just victims, they’re forced into more than they ever asked for. He’s seen plenty of blood on hands of children or even teenagers that it doesn’t belong to. He’s seen plenty of blood in places that are much worse than a red district in the states.  Fury wouldn’t have thrown these files at him. But there had been new connections to this case, it was over a decade over and he still can taste the bile in the back of his throat.   
  
Taste the way that it leaves him feeling _guilty_ at the mention of James Buchanan Barnes. The sixteen year old kid that had been taken from his family when he had been walking home from school. The blonde is still haunted by those facts because he’d been the last physical person to talk to _Barnes_. And he still won’t forgive himself for that. The guilt tends to eat you alive, and he wonders if he ever could have changed the outcome of the events.   
  
 There had been countless allegations against Alexander Pierce of the years that had stacked up. At least from the inside where some of his trusted had turned rather shady things in under a hidden eye. But the problem is, Pierce knew the games that they were playing. The witnesses or the sources were found dead in the states right outside their doorstep most of the time. And of course there were some that had never come back from Alexander.   
  
    Rumlow had been one of those. Working among Fury, and then he had chosen to hide with those snakes, those vultures. Of course the blonde had tried to shoot Rumlow but he had gotten away, he had coverage in more places than Steve even had known. And it still sickens him how much Rumlow had started laughing at the injuries he had given Steve. Steve had been out of work for almost a year or longer from the broken ribs.   
  
      And here he was again. Sitting in a café in Brooklyn, mulling over his notes. The facts that had been collected over the years. People that were missing, people that were found dead. Traitors. It was a mess, between politics and an age old case. Fury had told them that they had a reason to believe that they hadn’t killed Barnes. That this case needed another look at. The problem was, that a lot of the files had been taken or burned. How it had happened, no one knew, they just knew that a lot of the information was gone concerning the case.   
  
             The only real evidence they had gotten was a little red book. It had come out of a raid a few years after Rumlow had gotten out of the states. It had been when they had gotten a gasp on Zemo. But it had only been once, and brief, and it had left their database in shambles. It had been a mess, everything had been purged, and at least Fury’s records had concerning Zola and Alexander Pierce. The book itself, Steve had looked over at least a dozen times.   
  
       It had been entries, records dating back to the early two thousands date wise. At least that’s what he got but he wasn’t positive considering everything written in that book was _Russian_ , there was nothing in English. Not a drop. Well that’d be lying if he said that but when there was English it didn’t make sense or what was written. Steve had figured out there was a month system in place by the small numbers in the corner and it was a journal of some point but he wasn’t sure what exactly.   
  
     He had talked among Fury and Natasha. Natasha had frowned heavily and gone almost ghost white at the book, and then had left to do other work. Steve had this feeling that she had disclosed something to Fury later on but if he knew something Steve didn’t, he hadn’t said anything. And Steve had a hunch it was of personal importance if that was the case. But none the less the book was still the only lead they had even if it was a dead set weight in his hands.   
  
    He just knew that it talked about a soldier. That it talked about one a lot, that no names were given. A lot of the names were either nicknames or what the people went by within HYDRA. And it wasn’t much to work with, even if they knew Zemo was involved with HYDRA not a trace of him being involved was within the confines of that book. Steve sighs again. Fingers picking at his coffee, coming to a stand. He’d been sent out mostly to calm his head. He knows how everyone works back at base. Not to mention, Fury knows he can spot things when he’s wandering that are abnormal or out of place.   
  
So when he rises to his feet, and he bumps shoulders with someone it’s unexpected. It’s by chance. A chance, or so he thinks. But fate, fate would always have it otherwise for Rogers. And when he goes to apologize. His words catch dead in his throat. His mouth clicks open and then clicks closed, because even after a _decade_ he knows. He knows. He knows those _blue_ eyes anywhere.   
  
     Barnes is thin. Thin but has muscle, there’s muscle and flesh. But he looks tiny in the clothes that he’s dressed in, almost oversized. A red hoodie that seen better days, a shirt underneath, jeans that have more dirt than he’s seen in years on them. He’s dressed in clothing that is too large on his body. Hair that isn’t pulled back but hangs in his face, concealing eyes. Blue eyes that had flashed a haunted look almost, but then had gone back to almost _numb_.   
  
    And Barnes is caught. He’s caught standing there. And the blonde is about as white as a ghost. He’s lost all color in his face. And he can feel that numb sickening feeling back in his bones. That same feeling he felt when he had first learned James had gone missing. That wrenching feeling that has haunted him for years and years.    
  
                   “Bucky?”  
  
                “Who the hell is Bucky?”  
  
   And everything crashes on its axis.


End file.
